ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 54: Undone

Several times, as I applied moisturizer to Ernie’s skinny legs after his morning bath, he said: “I don’t want to be a burden to you or Joshua.”

“You aren’t a burden, Ernie. We don’t think that at all.”

But Ernie must have felt like a burden, or he wouldn’t have said that.

I could have said to him: Oh, Ernie, you carried me on your back for years and years. The first fifteen years of our marriage, you were the sole money-maker. I didn’t bring in a dime.You were constantly having to think up ways to make money. We always needed money.

Most men forty years old would not have married a spoiled, sarcastic twenty-one year old and fathered a child — especially a man who wanted with all his heart to write fiction. How that must have terrified him, taking on the responsibility of a family without a regular job. Yet I never even thought about it — how courageous he was. Or, perhaps, how foolish. Or, how needy.

A little of all of that, Ernie would probably say. He’d probably say: I longed for so much. I wanted to write novels, and I also wanted a true love by my side willing to help me, and I wanted a child who’d look up to me, to be my heir. I wanted my stories to be read. I wanted my life to make a difference.

I helped you as best I could, Ernie, and Joshua looked to you for guidance and advice. And you are a published writer. Your memoir is out there — sixteen stories from your childhood, from your heart.

He’d probably say to that: Not enough, Ernestina. I left so much undone.

Ernie left a million unpublished words, a spoiled little girl, and a son. And now the little girl has come undone.